False Summer
by icecreamlova
Summary: Earth turns, time passes, and seasons come and go. The Circle's relationship through the books, and how it regains normalcy of a sort after a false start. 3 - A lute competition. Just... fluff, normality.
1. False Summer

_Compiled from fics written for Seasonal Bingo on Fief Goldenlake._

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><p><strong>False Summer<br>**_By icecreamlova_

- : -

Bells tolled cheerfully in the distance, bouncing through the air in musical waves. Rosethorn glanced at the roof; sure enough, there her four children reclined, limbs sprawled as though attempting to soak up more of the withering summer heat. Even from her garden, Rosethorn could see the straw dangling from Briar's mouth.

Just a few minutes more, Rosethorn decided. She would let him have just one lazy afternoon, to treasure later while he weeded to keep his muscles strong and ear intact.

They were speaking wordlessly, she soon realized, as the other three burst into laughter; a perfect moment of understanding.

Now? Yes, now.

"Boy!"

- : -

Sandry's shoulder drooped slightly under her hand. Concerned, Lark looked very closely at the lines of her face, at pallor beneath her summer gold.

The smile on Sandry's face was gone, and her face was pinched as they watched Daja and Frostpine ride away.

"Lark," Sandry whispered. In her minute pause, Lark could hear bustle as Rosethorn and Briar, and Niko and Tris, packed. Sandry took a deep breath, and muttered, "I'm tired of change. I'm going to lose them all in the space of one moon."

Lark waited, but there was no sudden, soothing breeze around Sandry, and no one poked their heads out. Sandry was shielding from their thoughts.

- : -

Daja's steps left deep puddles in the otherwise frozen snow as she headed to the skating rink.

It was alarming to watch how comfortable she was with the cold. Frostpine always shuddered whenever he imagined snow or ice against his cheek - when the world was so cold it bleached his complexion from mahogany, as though his forbearers had been scorched by the sun, beyond frost-bite blue, to the pristine, endless silver-tipped white of a glacier. But the shudder was often play-acting, and as he watched Daja tracing clumsy circles over the ice, blades flashing, Frostpine felt a different chill grip his heart.

They'd received letters from the others, of course. Frostpine had expected them. What he hadn't expected was their contents, which had foreshadowed Daja's trials in Kugisko, the way fingers of frost touched his heart, reading the letters, had foreshadowed how he felt now.

Somewhere in Emelan, perhaps on the roof of the Duke's Citadel, Sandry was washing her hands in melted sleet: raindrops sliding off her dress, and never managing to take with it the impression of blood on her hands. Her fingers would never be white again.

Somewhere between Yanjing and Chammur, Briar woke every second night from nightmares of standing in a lush, green garden, streams tucked in the corners, and death tangled in the roots of desert trees. He'd never look at silver or gold the same way again.

Somewhere in the South, Tris was riding towards her own adventure. Maybe she'd already reached it.

None of them had written, in so many words, of their nightmares, but Frostpine knew enough of guilt to read between the lines. Daja, now, did too.

He glanced momentarily back at the letter Daja had struggled over for the past week as she pondered what to write. What not to say.

Daja was skating by herself on the ice, face composed but not serene, the empty space around her underlined by how she could spin - and did spin - without colliding with someone else. Frostpine wished he could allay some of the loneliness in Daja's heart, but he could only do so much. Her siblings would be like a miracle. It wouldn't come close to making her guilt vanish - which was exactly how that ought to be - but having these people who mattered so very much by her side would help them all.

Maybe, Frostpine thought, it was time to go home.

- : -

The tune in her head rose and fell, lah-dee-da-da, as Sandry tried to keep her smile interested and eyes focused. This was important. One day she would be advisor to Uncle's heir and she needed to know why the taxes on perfume from Janaal were so high.

It was still difficult to settle into the lesson when three letters lay unopened in her private chambers, tied shut with green silk ribbons. Their weight told Sandry that they contained souvenirs; all she had been able to think was that no present could best the knowledge that a year after leaving, they were coming home.

She would have no more privacy, true, and all three would notice the flush on her cheeks when she thought of the new ambassador's son; and her siblings would hear the humming in her head, when she ought to be listening to Uncle's advisors. But the past year had been lonely without their voices just within reach: one long winter, punctuated by Pasco, Lark and Yazmin, that was ending.

"I hope you found that educational," Uncle told her as they exited, "because I know it was not enthralling."

"I learned a great deal today," Sandry said gravely, and she had to glance down to hide a smile. Her mind was already reaching forward for the ribbon around her letters, like a seed struggling through frozen ground into sunlight. Lah-dee-da-da. She wondered what news awaited her. She wondered if it mattered, when Daja, and then the others, were coming home.

- : -

_There is no summer._

- : -

In Crane's greenhouse, where Briar had never belonged, autumn was forever absent. It had always unnerved Briar to work among the thriving plants, one instant, and then get slapped by the drowsiness the moment he stepped outside.

Unlike much else about him, that had not changed in his three years in the east. He still paused, struck by uncertainty, as the trees drooped in preparation of slumber, and leaves fell, one by one, to carpet the floor in damp orange. Inside, the forest of Crane's plants clamored; it was difficult to ignore them.

The last time it happened, also three years ago, his sisters had anticipated him. It had been Sandry who found him beginning to shiver on Crane's doorstep; she'd bought with her the scarf she'd knitted - one for each of the four of them - along with exasperated amusement that he'd forgotten.

But then, the last time, all three of his siblings had heard the shock coloring his thoughts.

Briar caught himself looking mournfully at the bright, summer interior of Crane's greenhouse. But no, he did not belong there, and autumn was the natural progression of life. He belonged in a world where time passed and summer faded. Besides, didn't all plants need an autumn?

The wind picked up, raising goose bumps along his bare neck. Leaves began raining down in earnest on the damp path around him as he walked alone to Discipline.

- : -

During his journey east, he had traveled alongside a trio of identical triplets. Brief acquaintance led to the glimmers of friendship, and when Briar sat opposite them during a conversation, keeping an eye on the traveling caravan leader that had tried to grossly overcharge their fare, he'd noticed the familiar signs, among the triplets, of words exchanged without speaking. The triplets were fifteen years his senior; they'd given him hope.

A futile hope, as it turned out.

Their previous dinner, for instance, among the glitter of Berenene's court. A winter snowstorm spun and shrieked outside, throwing hail against brick walls and a scattering of chips of shattered ice against the magic-reinforced glass windows. Twenty minutes in, a messenger had dashed, half-frozen, into the hall, interrupting festivities. Observing Berenene's face, Briar was almost tempted to say to his siblings, '_I'm surprised Berenene's glare doesn't melt the ice, steam it up, and make him burn._' Then he'd remembered when he was, and hadn't bothered making them laugh.

Now it was much later, and Briar's steaming drink had gone cold - and he hadn't grown into enough of a Bag to call for the servants, in this hour of the frigid night, to warm it for him. He left it by his bed, reminding himself that he didn't actually want to listen to the girls again. Too much could hurt them; too much about them would annoy him, the way they nattered on.

He would tell that part to Sandry, too, he decided, if she pushed again for their previous closeness.

- : -

Tris's voice felt strange and unfamiliar in his head.

Except that was a lie, and while Briar didn't mind lying to other people, this lie was to himself and this lie mattered. Hadn't the three of them been unrelenting to Sandry when she tried keep her people hers when she knew she couldn't administer to them?

No, Tris's voice - and Daja's, and Sandry's - were striking in their familiarity. They were branded in his mind more permanently than the mark of their circle in the palm of his hand. And maybe he didn't mind that the icy resolve to be completely separate was gone.

When he felt Tris shifting to see through his eyes, it cemented the realization. Namorn was three days behind them. They'd stopped to wait for Tris, and Briar had left horseback to examine the newly unfurling leaves of a roadside chestnut tree. Tris suppressed a snort of laughter as Sandry reached for a bird's nest balanced up high, fragile twigs raining down in her wake.

_'It's not exactly fun for the tree,'_ Briar told her dryly.

_'Tell Sandry,'_ Tris suggested. _'Though you'll have to explain again why you thought Sandry wouldn't take your challenge seriously.'_

Briar knew exactly how likely Sandry was to heed his advice, and mentally rolled his eyes. Besides, the tree was full of memories of children climbing it until they were so high up, watchers had to shade their eyes from the glare of the sun.

He followed Daja's example, instead, at the look on Sandry's face: he laughed.

- : -

Brushing sweat off his brow for the third or fourth time since he began weeding, Briar's bronzed hand froze at the flicker in the corner of his eye. Pale blue cotton, billowing: he could sense woven plants winding around Sandry's magic.

"Rosethorn's not here to grab your ear any longer," she teased, tempting him inside with a glass of lemonade.

"Only cause she knows I don't need her to," he reminded her, "or she'd come before you could say, 'I'm pulling!'" He stared forlornly at the cool shade. "Maybe for an hour."

Laughing, her elegant hands grabbed his, which were grubby with dirt, and they joined their siblings inside for an hour of chatter, of laughter, of draping boneless, relaxing.

Briar LOVED laughter, and he would never again forget it.

- : -

**Well?**


	2. The Night is Still Young

_For KrisEleven, who requested _**A night during the social season in the Citadel (Emelan)** _on the Goldenlake Wishing Tree._

_I could not __**quite**__ get it to be one night, so I'm afraid you'll have to stick with four different supershort nights. Probably still needs more rewriting and tweaking, but it has not gone anywhere in the past week I had it on my computer, so I am posting it now._

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><p><strong>False Summer<strong>  
><em>By icecreamlova<br>_The Night is Still Young

- : -

(year one)

Sandry lets the hem of her blue satin gown trail across the stone floor not because she can keep dirt off the fabric, but so that others will see the clean lines of her embroidery being unaffected by dust.

It is by far the most efficient way to stop nobles from asking, condescending, what she worried her pretty head over while at Winding Circle. As if Uncle would let a fourteen-year-old manage the Citadel if she learned nothing!

They are learning. Sandry speaks with men twice her age, grinning as Yazmin coaxes Duke Vedris into a romantic waltz. She keep up with Pasco, who tries everything he can see. For the first time, she joins a conversation Uncle did not invite her into, and the men treat her like she's more than a way to reach the duke's ear.

(Some, she finds, glance towards the threads shifting in her dress, and try to avoid her.)

It's not that Sandry knows the price of rice in the north - but those who truly advise Uncle appreciate a willing listener. So she becomes one.

They learn. She does too.

And so the social season passes, in serious talks of crops and trade.

- : -

(year four)

Tris finds the winds whipping around the balcony far better company than the metaphorical tempests blowing about inside the ballroom walls.

The air inside is weighed down by fragments of lies snatched away by random motion, and listening makes her head ache.

She will not, Tris thinks, regret leaving the obligation to dance in public. At Lightsbridge, she will be free to escape into the vast libraries, dust wafting, making her sneeze, but somehow, suspended in the air, still sparkling more vibrantly than the telltale glitter of charms to change one's appearance.

Frivolous.

She can see them through the many-paned windows. Sandry blushing in front of a suitor, Briar charming a noblewoman out of her unembroidered handkerchief, Daja examining the new chandeliers installed during their trip to Namorn. At least they are having fun.

Breezes whip around her, racing and asking her to spin with them in their own dance, and Tris is sorely tempted...

But she will have so much time with her breezes, while her siblings will be far away in just a week, when she leaves for Lightsbridge. So she enters the ballroom again.

And so the social season passes, in snatches of moments with her family.

- : -

(year five)

Daja feels the warmth of her Living Metal creations as they feed of the copper in the dirt, growing cautiously and beginning to bud off metal flowers.

The visiting pair of Traders ignore the suspicious frowns from other nobles, instead examining the display she set up around the perimeter. At least five or six of the nobles, Daja can hear Sandry think, are actually annoyed because Daja did not, in fact, decorate the Citadel solely for their enjoyment. Daja smiles, with teeth.

She is just as certain as Sandry that some of the stares are because of Polyam's scars, but if the other woman enjoys causing them discomfort, Daja will not stop her. She enjoys the secret glee in Polyam's face, making her harsher, but somehow more transparent at the same time.

Their hostess seems torn between amusement and exasperation, as she glances at the nobles she may someday rule. Briar, meanwhile, grinning at the expression on her face, has settled for delight.

Sandry sets her shoulders straight, and holds the eyes of one of her friends among the nobility. After a moment, the noble nods, and return to business.

And so the social season passes, in small, unspoken compromises.

- : -

(year six)

The woman dancing with the man whom Sandry has, the entire evening, been glancing at, wears lavender perfume. As he cuts in - receiving a faintly thankful look from both partners, and Sandry too - he can feel the essence tingling in his fingers.

As the man wanders off towards Sandry, the only person the common-born Summersea denizen actually knows, Briar begins mentally calculating how soon he will need to be at Sandry's side to support an engagement. Daj', he knows, will return home soon when the Trader caravans arrive. Tris has another year at Lightsbridge. If they do not come, will he be allowed to casually mention, to the less supportive nobles, his abilities?

The woman in his arms watches her former partner approach Sandry, a small smile on her face. It makes her pretty rather than plain.

Her nails are blunt with work.

Startled, Briar glances at the woman's face. She smile changes from happy to wicked.

The only reason he (and Daja and Tris while they are present) visits every celebration is because Sandry is the hostess, and they want to support her.

But maybe this social season he'll find something else to keep him coming back.

- : -

**Well?**


	3. Music

_Originally written for SMACKDOWN__ 2011, Team Circlecest._

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><p><strong>False<strong>** Summer**_  
><em>_By icecreamlova  
><em>Music_  
><em>

- : -

One week.

They'd agreed on one week of practice (though any musician on the street knew that it took far, far longer to master an instrument), and then a display.

Fortunately for Sandry, she'd touched the lute before, and a passing musician from Yazmin's studio had given her a few pointers.

Aware of her siblings' eyes upon her, Sandry stood up her full height (which was almost the same as Daja and Briar, sitting down) and moved the lute into position.

"Ready?" Briar prodded. It had been his idea, though he had thus far refused to explain where it had come from.

Tris and Daja, who looked somewhat less interested, simply watched.

Sandry strummed.

Oh, a mistake there...

Was that a mistake? She wasn't sure!

And yes, the easy part of the simple piece!

And... finished.

"Well?" she demanded. "What do you think?"

Now Daja smiled as well. "We cast our votes. You don't get to know until everyone's had a turn." They all turned to look at Tris, who grumbled.

- : -

Tris still wasn't sure how her (annoying, meddling) brother had managed to pull her into their lute-playing competition. Maybe it had something to do with her desire to actually do something with her siblings, now that she was finally back from Lightsbridge.

It did amuse her, that her certification at Lightsbridge meant that Daja, Sandry, and Briar watched her expectantly, because they joked about how Lightsbridge FORCED its students to learn music. They spoke in jest; it amused her even more that they were right.

Tris strode past Sandry, who gave her a huge smile, and Briar, who had a smirk plastered on his face. Daja, however, was as cool and calm as ever.

Tris strummed the lute Sandry handed her thoughtfully, enjoying, wickedly, their surprise that she did, indeed, know how to play. It was one skill, at least, she could be proud and comfortable to display.

"No fair!" Briar, who was going last, said.

"You were the one who came up with the idea, boy," Tris said, and began to play.

- : -

Daja actually didn't mind joining the lute competition that Briar had set up. When Tris finished her part, she took the lute from her sister, received an encouraging smile from Sandry, and stood up.

Their playing 'platform' was simply a space they'd cleared in the living room of Daja's house.

Daja closed her eyes, imagining the song she had learnt for the past week - because that was the first time she'd touched the lute.

Her long fingers strummed over the strings, and they pushed into her fingers, but she barely felt it; she was used to metal-work.

"Are you going to start now?" Briar asked.

Daja did.

She played the song that she'd practiced, at the expense of actually learning anything about the lute.

It was simple, single-notes, and it reminded her of home.

When her eyes opened, and she prepared to receive her critique, Sandry reminded her, "We'll tell you when it's over."

Well then. Briar had better start playing.

- : -

As the final notes of Daja's piece died down, Briar realized he would cheerfully have hugged Pasco. There was fire in his sisters' eyes, and pleasure, at the simple thing of competing in a lute-playing competition.

Briar had started the lute competition because Pasco had prompted it. He hadn't, initially, been convinced that the benefits outweighed the problems (one hour or so of fun, listening to everyone, compared to the week they'd spend apart while practicing), but he was convinced now. Because quiet contentment was a good thing, but joy, actively trying to do things together, was even better.

It was actually a bit intimidating, though. Daja had grown up around her distinctive Trader music; Sandry had access to the great musicians of the realm; Tris had actually studied a bit about music and the lute in Lightsbridge. Briar? He was just a street rat.

Nevertheless...

Daja handed him the lute, and he took it. He wouldn't get sappy or something like one or two of his sisters, but he wasn't too embarrassed when he started playing. Not when he was playing to them.

- : -

To his great astonishment, Briar won the competition.

- : -

**Well?**


End file.
